


i know my hands are rough

by octoaliencowboy



Series: Moments [1]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Grayson (Comics)
Genre: Dick is trans. Not plot relevant but don’t you forget it, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Angst, Rated T for language, Romance, based off a tumblr post lol, some blood but not explicit, tenderness without plot, tenderness......., ”I could have lost you” moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 11:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18940291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octoaliencowboy/pseuds/octoaliencowboy
Summary: “oh to wrap bandages around and put disinfectant on another man’s wounds as i catch his tender gaze and lovingly call him an idiot and tell him to be more careful” — tumblr user bassiterDick did something stupid. It scared the shit out of Tiger. A freak-out ensues





	i know my hands are rough

**Author's Note:**

> SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING MY OTHER DICKTIGER FICS LOL I PROMISE MORE IS COMING

“Don’t do that again. Don’t you  _ ever _ do that again.”

 

Tiger sounds out of breath, even now, even though they’d stopped running for a good while. It’s hard to remember, in that moment, what it was they had been running from. The days and the perils seemed to blend together lately, as they both went on with not enough sleep and too much adrenaline. 

 

It’s also difficult to remember much of anything with the pain clouding Dick’s mind. Dick is no stranger to pain, but most pain, anything but the deepest of wounds, inflicted on your soul more than your body, is easily forgotten. And so even though he’s felt it a thousand times, the sting of a cut, the throb of a bruise, the ache of a broken bone, it always feels like something new. 

 

Dick is too tired to contain his hiss when Tiger cleans the nasty gouge on his side, the antiseptic soaked cloth burning like fire on his tender skin, fire he knows he’s really felt before but cannot dredge up more than a phantom of the sensation. He hurts too much to think of anything but the pain of  _ right now _ . 

 

“It’s a good thing we kept the first aid kit from that agent’s car,” Tiger says, mostly to himself. He’s fuming, positively livid. Anger seeps out of his pores and his eyes and his mouth and it washes over Dick like water on a duck’s back. He’s too tired to react. He’s too tired to figure out why Tiger is even angry right now— they got away, after all. They’ll live to fight another day. In fact, Tiger should be thanking him, because the man would probably be dead if Dick hadn’t jumped in front of that blade. All Dick really wants right now is to close his eyes and sleep, but he doesn’t because he knows if he does Tiger will slap him awake. “Because this is going to need stitches.”

 

He hears the second half of Tiger’s sentence as if it were spoken from a distance. He keeps his eyes locked on Tiger’s, and that’s okay, because Tiger’s eyes are focused on the wound on his torso, not on his face, so he can indulge in a little bit of gazing. He really can’t, for the life of him, figure out why Tiger is so angry. 

 

Dick doesn’t realize he’d spoken this last thought out loud until Tiger responds. 

 

“I am  _ angry _ because if that knife had gone a single inch deeper, I wouldn’t be stitching you up, I would be  _ burying your corpse _ .” Tiger glares down at the open first aid kit, rummaging through it more roughly than the plastics and paper packagings deserve. “You  _ idiot _ — I call you an idiot often, because it’s always true, but I’ve never meant it more than I mean it now.  _ Never  _ do that again.”

 

Slowly, because everything he does right now is slow and sluggish, Dick blinks at him. He hopes Tiger digs some painkillers out of that abused little kit. “Why?” 

 

Tiger’s gaze finally snaps up to meet Dick’s, quick as a speedster in contrast to Dick’s lethargic movements. He looks— the fog clears from Dick’s brain for a moment as he realizes that Tiger looks afraid. Wild eyed, like a mad man. Caught off guard, like he’s been found out. But what Dick’s apparently found him out for, he doesn’t know. 

 

Tiger looks back down at his hands, shaking, unfathomably, around the packaging of a sterilized needle. He doesn’t say anything more. Dick frowns. Blood oozes sluggishly out his side. He should probably stop distracting Tiger from the task at hand. 

 

“Hey,” he says instead of  _ not _ distracting Tiger. “Hey. I don’ think I’ve ever seen you so unravelled. You okay?” 

 

He means it both in an emotional and physical sense. Tiger’s shoulders are hunched, as supposed to his usual perfect posture that serves to make him appear even taller and even more intimidating. And his eyes are wide as if he were panicking, and his face is pale as if he were the one losing blood. He is, in all senses of the word, unravelled. 

 

“No! Are you daft? Of course I’m not  _ okay _ !” Tiger shouts suddenly, like the words are a mouthful of poison and he has to spit them out as violently as possible. He still isn’t looking Dick in the eye. “I can’t bury another friend!” 

 

Dick doesn’t react the way he probably should. Because Dick has always been a brat. He smiles at Tiger, wide and teasing. “So you admit that we’re friends?” 

 

For some reason, Dick had been expecting Tiger to respond with a roll of his eyes like he usually does when faced with this kind of phrase. At least Dick has the excuse of being a little bit out of it. But obviously, Tiger doesn’t react like that. 

 

Instead, he snaps. He’s been at the end of his rope for a long time, and now the last frayed edges have been let go. Lost to the wind. He explodes. 

 

“Yes! Damnit,  _ yes _ !” He roars. He punches Dick’s thigh (which Tiger is crouched between, because Dick is propped up on the closed toilet seat in their shitty motel bathroom, and Tiger is kneeling on the tiled floor in front of him, which incites all different kinds of Thoughts, none of which are appropriate for this situation) like his body is lashing out of its own accord, and Dick’s thigh happens to be the closest punchable thing. (Ow, Dick mutters). “Yes, we are friends!” 

 

Tiger’s voice is ragged as he goes on. Like he’s swallowed razor blades, choking on blood— except it’s not blood, it’s tears, and Dick is baffled, tears glistening in Tiger’s frantic, angry eyes. 

 

“We’re friends! I hate that I let myself care this much, but I can’t change it now no matter how hard I try! So don’t you  _ dare _ pull a stunt like that again! You can’t ever gamble with your life so carelessly— especially not for someone like me!” 

 

He takes a deep breath. Looks back down, starts threading the needle. “You had better be on too many painkillers right now to remember this conversation later.” He grumbles. 

 

“You didn’t give me any painkillers.” Dick doesn’t say he might be hopped up on too much plain old  _ pain  _ to remember this later. He hopes he remembers this.

 

“Fuck.” Tiger curses under his breath. He slumps, the fight finally leaving him, hours after the fight is over. His forehead connects with Dick’s knee and stays there. “Fuck.” 

 

“Hey, it’s okay.” Dick leans forward even as his carved up ribs scream in protest. He fights back a wince. Cups the sides of Tiger’s face and pulls his head up so he can look Tiger in the eyes when he says what he says next. His voice is as gentle as he can make it. “I care about you, too.”

 

“You shouldn’t.” Tiger answers immediately. 

 

“But I do. And you can’t stop me. You should know by now I’m damn stubborn.” 

 

“You are.” Tiger’s free hand comes up and his fingertips brush along the back of Dick’s hand, feather-light. 

 

“Do you want me to just do this myself?” Dick reaches for the thread and needle in Tiger’s other hand, but Tiger pulls them out of reach. 

 

“No. I will do it.” He whispers, “If I can do nothing else for you, I will do this.” 

 

“You sap.” Dick smiles at him, and it’s all in his eyes. He feels like he might be glowing, with this smile. He might be getting delirious. “You’re here. I’m not alone on this hell mission thanks to you. What more could I ask of you?” 

 

“You’re the sap.” It’s the most childish comeback Tiger has had to date, but his hands steady at Dick’s words. 

 

The needle stings where Tiger sews his side shut. 

 

Pain and love are alike in a lot of ways. Like pain, the physical sensation love brings you is not easily recalled after the fact. It always feels new. 

 

Dick has certainly been in love before. 

 

It still feels new, now. 


End file.
